Mountain Rose Gifts forced to close shop

Montrose home decor store is another casualty of the economy on Honolulu Ave.

March 21, 2010|By Zain Shauk

During the past two years, Dale Dawson saw the end of his Montrose store coming.

Month after month, he watched as consumers cut back on their spending and looked elsewhere for their home decor needs, he said.

“We used to make money every month, but with the economy we were losing so much money on a monthly basis that even Christmas didn’t recover it,” Dawson said. “That was a factor. It’s like how long do you want to do that?”

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Dawson will close his store, Mountain Rose Gifts on Honolulu Avenue, at the end of the month as his lease expires and he finishes clearing out his stock.

“Changes come upon you, and you either adapt or you get nervous,” said Dawson, who will become a full-time pastor at Chatsworth Lake Community Church while his wife continues to operate her Montrose store, Revelation Tops. “We’re excited.”

Dawson serves as executive director of the Montrose Shopping Park Assn. and will continue working in the salaried role to help attract shoppers to the area.

“Montrose should stay vibrant, but it’s going to lose a segment called home decor that just nobody wants to do it anymore,” Dawson said. “It’s too costly.”

Mountain Rose was the second major home decor store on Honolulu to close in recent months. Country Classics, a 25-year fixture in the shopping park, shut down last year.

Other longtime Montrose draws have also called it quits over the last year, unable to weather the economic challenges that have prompted shoppers to sharply rein in their spending. Men’s clothing store Kimmel-Meehan was one of them, closing after 50 years on Honolulu and making way for Billy’s Board Shop to move in.

“It really isn’t shocking that stores are going away, but the number of them, yes, it’s more than normal,” said Councilman John Drayman, who serves as chairman of the Glendale Redevelopment Agency and was previously on the shopping park association’s board of directors.

Normally about six of the more than 140 retailers in the shopping park call it quits after the holiday season, but this year there were 10, including Mountain Rose, Drayman said.